Sunday, November 04, 2018

The Toronto Blue Jays may have found their manager, but the coach shuffling continues.

Hitting coach Brook Jacoby and first base coach Tim Leiper have been fired, Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins told The Athletic’s John Lott on Saturday.

Jacoby, 58, had been with Toronto since the 2015 season when the team reached the American League Championship Series for the first time 1993. The Blue Jays led the majors in runs that season as Josh Donaldson won the American League Most Valuable ...

That’s four Japan Series titles for the Hawks in the last five seasons. I think that counts as a dynasty…

Rick van den Hurk shut out the Hiroshima Carp for six innings and the Hawks scored runs on a squeeze bunt and a home run to capture another Japan Series title with a 2-0 win over the Carp in Game 6 in front of a crowd of 30,723 at Mazda Stadium on Saturday night.

A month after dismissing executive vice president Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter following the worst season in franchise history, the Orioles’ search for a new individual to lead their baseball operations department continues.

One of three organizations looking to fill that position this offseason, the Orioles see the pace of their pursuit — and scarcity of public information about it — as more similar to the San Francisco Giants’ ongoing search than the one that led the New York ...

The deadline for MLB teams to extend a qualifying offer to free agents was 5 p.m. ET on Friday. The offer is a one-year deal worth $17.9 million for 2019. Once extended, players have 10 days to either accept or reject the offer. If a player rejects a qualifying offer, then he becomes a free agent.

This system has been in place for the past six offseasons. There have been 73 qualifying offers extended and the only players to ever accept the offer have been Jeremy Hellickson, Neil Walker, Matt ...

Jason Heyward isn’t walking away from more than $100 million. According to the Chicago Sun Times, the outfielder let the opt-out deadline pass for his contact with the Chicago Cubs and will stay with the team for at least another year.

The opt-out is part of the eight-year, $184 million contract Heyward, 29, signed with the Cubs in 2016. He has five years and $106 million left on the deal.

The decision to decline the opt-out was probably a no-brainer for Heyward, though many on the North ...

The Cleveland Indians must feel confident about their ability to contend in the American League Central in the near future. Despite winning 91 games last season, Cleveland will reportedly make its veteran players available for trade during the winter, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney.

The news comes as a massive surprise considering Cleveland made the postseason in 2018. With a few additions on the free-agent market, the team had a chance to head into the 2019 season as one of the top World ...

More than six weeks after firing Jeff Banister and after interviewing more than a dozen candidates near and far, the Rangers have chosen Los Angeles Dodgers third base coach Chris Woodward, according to three industry sources.

General manager Jon Daniels, who earlier in the day addressed the team’s roster manipulations, did not respond to text requests for comment. Woodward is the third manager Daniels has hired in his 13 years with the Rangers; ...

Justin Wayne was a bust. The fifth overall pick in the 2000 MLB draft, Wayne appeared in just 26 games over three seasons with the Florida Marlins, putting up an ERA over 6 (but earning a World Series ring along the way). Wayne’s post-baseball career was more successful, and more lucrative, at least right until he got busted for a bizarre insurance fraud which involved purchasing the urine of drug addicts.

Thursday in federal court West Palm Beach, Fla., Wayne was sentenced to 46 months in ...

Friday, November 02, 2018

We wrote yesterday about how Mookie Betts had a bit of trouble catching an inbound beer can during the Red Sox’ World Series parade. That can, it seems, was not the biggest problem.

Other fans on the parade route threw cans at players and Red Sox officials, with at least six getting arrested for disorderly conduct. One of them was nabbed after hitting a team photographer, Jason Varitek’s wife and Alex Cora’s daughter. None of them were hurt.

Carlos Beltran, his wife Jessica, and his three kids pulled off a stellar group costume for Halloween this year by going as ... Carlos Beltran on all his former baseball teams. Even the cat, dog, and fish participated.

Photos and other very good to nigh excellent athlete Halloween costumes at the link. Jessica Beltran looks more like Carlos Beltran than Carlos Beltran. I think it’s the beard.

From article: The Brewers suffered their second defection in a week on Wednesday when general manager David Stearns announced pitching coach Derek Johnson was leaving to pursue another opportunity. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that Johnson was leaving to become pitching coach of the Cincinnati Reds under new manager David Bell.

Before she arrived on the Vancouver set of Deadpool 2 in mid-August 2017, Joi Harris had never performed a stunt. She’d never been anywhere near a movie or TV set, for that matter. Producers and studio 20th Century Fox wanted an African-American double for Zazie Beetz, who’d been cast in the role of Domino. They hired Harris, 40, who had done some motorcycle racing, and flew her in a couple of days before the shoot. The sequence was pretty straightforward. It called for a rider, sitting astride ...

Larry Chappelle [sic], hard-hitting outfielder, for whom Charley Comiskey of the Chicago White Sox paid $10,000 several years ago, is seriously ill with Spanish influenza at the Letterman Service Hospital [in San Francisco] today.

If it weren’t for horrible luck, Larry Chappell wouldn’t have had any luck at all. He hit .305 with Milwaukee in the American Association from 1912-1913, so Comiskey went out and spent a truckload of cash (I’ve seen at least three ...

Thursday, November 01, 2018

“You don’t hear so much about these motor transport drivers [in World War I],” said the [anonymous] captain, “but don’t forget they are part of the big job, and a big part.
...
“I’ll give you an example of their spirit. After a recent hard push we had an afternoon off, so the men arranged a ball game just back of the front with a rival outfit…Then the fun started.

“Two big German shells lit in the outfield. The rival pitcher turned ...

The Arizona Fall League has been a breeding ground for some of baseball’s most prized prospects since its inaugural 1992 season, a showcase that plays out for approximately six weeks in half a dozen Phoenix-area stadiums each year. Every August it’s decided who will play in the AFL, with six minor leaguers from each organization making the initial cut.

Historically, over half of the youngsters that participate in the AFL end up on a Major League roster at some point, with many developing into ...

Four-time All-Star Manny Machado is ready to strike it rich in free agency this winter. The only question is which team will be willing to pony up perhaps as much as $300 million to sign him.

One team that certainly has the money is the Los Angeles Dodgers. That’s where Machado finished the 2018 season after being acquired from the Baltimore Orioles in July. But many are wondering if Machado’s already closed the door on a Hollywood return based on this “thank you” Instagram post he ...

As soon as Willie McCovey’s physical ailments began to prevent him from joining baseball’s greats in Cooperstown every July for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, they started coming to him.

Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Joe Torre, Vin Scully and many more would ride the elevator to the third floor at AT&T Park to visit McCovey, who watched every game from a booth when his health allowed.

They felt that no visit to San Francisco was complete without saying hi to Mac. And ...

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

The problems with selling Green and Gold in a sea of Orange. Or: why the A’s were never going to get A-grade radio coverage in the Bay Area, and never accepted it.

There was also a public perception that the team wouldn’t spend money to retain key players, the stadium they played in was a mess, and ownership made it worse by continuing to tell the public they wanted no part of being in Oakland. The vibe all the way around was negative. Meanwhile, the teams across the street seemed to have ...

“The makeup of the teams is even similar. The Bills were loaded with stars and future Hall of Famers in quarterback Jim Kelly, running back Thurman Thomas and defensive end Bruce Smith. Is that much different than the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, Yasiel Puig and Justin Turner?”

[Red Sox owner Harry Frazee and Braves Field owner James Gaffney] spent most of the day at [Braves] field, looking over the big plant and discussing the proposition to have the games of both clubs played there in the future.
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Five years ago, when he built Braves’ Field at a cost of more than half a million dollars, Gaffney turned down a chance to hire Fenway Park for $20,000 a year. Fenway Park is now almost too valuable real estate to be used for baseball ...